Due to the advent of portable communication devices, business establishments, such as restaurants, have sought to leverage this technology to achieve higher operating efficiencies, take advantage of strategic marketing opportunities, receive and act upon quantitative consumer data, and provide enhanced customer relations. Moreover, restaurants have also sought to make the ordering process more convenient for customers, so that order fulfillment is more efficient and streamlined.
For example, in many restaurants, once an order is placed or a table has been requested, there is a need for clients or customers to be contacted to notify them that their order has been completed or that their dining table is ready for them. Such notifications are largely accomplished verbally by a hostess or other attendant, requiring the customer to listen very carefully for his or her name to be called thereby. However, other manners for notifying a customer regarding their order or table status utilize wireless electronic pagers, such as “coaster pagers”, that are carried by the customers and provide an audible and/or visual paging alert at the command of the establishment.
Coaster pagers generally require that the customer wait in close proximity to the hostess or sales station in order to be within the wireless communication range of the paging system of the establishment. Additionally, while the establishment can alert the customer via the coaster pager, there is no provision for communicating data from the customer's coaster pager back to the establishment. As such, coaster pagers do not provide two-way communication between the establishment and the customer, and thus there is no way for the customer to identify the status of their wait or to allow them to electronically order food via the coaster pager. Moreover, coaster pagers are prone to being stolen, often need replacement, and are costly to initially procure and maintain. Furthermore, while coaster pagers may provide a manner in which printed media can be displayed, such advertising methods tend to be costly, requiring a considerable amount of time in planning, printing, and maintenance. Additionally, coaster pagers cannot provide for a marketing message to be delivered at some predetermined future time directly to a specific customer due to the nature of their design. Moreover, because coaster pagers come into frequent contact with individuals' hands, they must be frequently cleaned to prevent the transmission of bacteria and viruses to successive users. Additionally, because coaster pagers are required to remain within the wireless communication range of the hostess or sales station, the customer is permitted to wait in only one line at a time.
To overcome the drawbacks of traditional paging systems, including that of coaster pagers, two alternative systems that send text messages have been developed, namely simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), an email interface and mobile phone number based banking systems. SMTP based systems operate to alert a consumer via a text message received on a mobile communication device, such as a mobile phone. However, such systems are problematic and have many drawbacks, including slow speed and inconsistent operation. Specifically, e-mail was not intended as a system to quickly send or exchange text messages, and as a result, most text messages that are sent using e-mail protocols experience latency problems ranging from 1 minute to 2 hours for example. In addition, to use SMTP based email systems to send text messages, it is necessary for a consumer to have a relatively thorough understanding of the operation of his or her mobile phone, and to know the wireless carrier with which he or she has wireless service in order to enable the establishment to send such text messages to their mobile communication device.
In addition, SMTP text message systems that deliver text messages to facilitate commercial transactions are not sanctioned by wireless phone carriers to handle commercial traffic and, thus, are subject to being potentially disabled at any given time. Moreover, SMTP text message systems only enable one-way communication from the mobile communication device, with no ability for the mobile communication device to respond or otherwise communicate reply messages back to a text message received from the establishment. Thus, due to the lack of two-way communication when utilizing SMTP email systems to deliver text messages, there is no opportunity to present advertising and/or marketing information to the customer's mobile communication device, to respond to an inquiry made by a customer, or to communicate order status to the customer upon the customer's request. As a result, opportunities for the restaurant or other establishment to engage the customer with value-added information and content are lost.
In addition to SMTP text message systems, mobile phone number banking systems provide a system whereby one or more dedicated mobile phone numbers are allocated to handle the flow of text message traffic via a computer interface. However, because these mobile phone numbers are configured for peer-to-peer communication, and not for the completion of commercial transactions, the mobile phone banking systems are subject to intense scrutiny and, therefore, are subject to being potentially disabled by the wireless phone carriers. As a result, the customer and establishment are both exposed to uncertainty as to the continued operation of the phone banking system, which prevents such systems from being widely adopted and placed into service. Furthermore, the use of such communication methodologies also results in the lack of standard opt-in and opt-out approvals that the mobile phone carriers require in order to allow an establishment to transmit marketing messages to customers on its text and data networks.
Therefore, due to the drawbacks of SMTP based systems and phone number banking systems to communicate text messages to customers or clients, efforts have been made to utilize dedicated text messaging technology, whereby simple message service (SMS) and multimedia message service (MMS) based text messages are transferred between mobile communication devices, such as mobile phones. Unfortunately, current mobile communication systems that enable an establishment to communicate text messages with potential or existing customers is relatively costly and complex to integrate into the establishment's operating scheme. Furthermore, such text messaging systems are cumbersome and expensive to operate, making it difficult to establish a text message based paging and order fulfillment system.
Therefore, there is a need for a text message paging system that provides an establishment with a system to provide information to a customer. In addition, there is a need for a text message paging and ordering system to allow an establishment to communicate information to a customer and to allow a customer to communicate information to the establishment in a two-way manner. Furthermore, there is a need for a text message paging system that has reduced operating costs. Still yet, there is a need for a consolidated wireless phone carrier approved text message paging system that enables an establishment to communicate with customers using an SMS (short message service) or MMS (multimedia message service) text message with wireless carrier approved, dedicated or shared short codes. Moreover, there is a need for a text message based paging system that utilizes text messages that are not transferred using communication protocols, such as simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), which are subject to spam and filtering abuses or mobile phone number banking systems which are subject to being disabled by wireless phone carriers. In addition, there is a need for a text message paging system that allows a user to wait in a “virtual” manner in multiple lines of various establishments.